April 5-11: This Week in Memphis History

1993: U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Sr. was acquitted of all federal bank fraud charges in the dramatic conclusion to his second trial on the charges in three years. The jury foreman read the not guilty verdicts on 18 counts and on the final count, Ford embraced his oldest son, Harold Ford Jr. Co-defendants Douglas Beaty and Karl Schledwitz were also acquitted of all charges by the jury in a case that began with the collapse of the Butcher bank empire in 1983.

1973: Memphis Mayor Wyeth Chandler presented a city budget proposal to the Memphis City Council totaling $121.7 million, a 14.6 percent increase from the previous budget.

The Memphis Hunter-Jumper Classic Horse Show opened at the Shelby County Equestrian Center.

1968: An estimated 20,000 people held a silent march to City Hall four days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King’s widow and his children joined the march at Main and Beale Streets with several thousand National Guardsmen lining both sides of Main with bayonets fixed. “How many men must die before we can have a free and true and peaceful society?” she asked outside City Hall. “How long will it take?” Source: “Hellhound On His Trail” by Hampton Sides.

1942: “The Courtship of Andy Hardy” starring Mickey Rooney was at Loew’s Palace movie theater while “Spooks Run Wild” with Bela Lugosi and the East End Kids played The Strand.